Hello all. My name is Michael Alan Nelson and, as John mentioned in an earlier post, I'm the writer of the comic series Fall of Cthulhu, the upcoming Hexed, and the online novel Dingo (it's free so go ahead and give it a look). He has been kind enough to let me play here in his dojo and share some of my thoughts on writing, tech, and anything else that may be of interest to my fellow monkeys.
I figured I'd start out by discussing one of the most common questions I'm asked at conventions, during interviews, and even from beginning writers looking for some inspiration.
Where do you get your ideas?
It's a damn good question. I even find myself asking me that question from time to time. Where DO I get my ideas? I just wish I had a damn good answer, or at least a better one. Unfortunately, the only answer I have is EVERYWHERE.
Not exactly a mystical pool of creative enlightenment, is it? Sorry. But it's true. Don't get me wrong, there are tiny hidden vaults filled with the seeds of ideas scattered about that can jump start my imagination when I'm facing a wall, but I prefer to grab my ideas from what I see around me.
For example, the idea for the scene at the end of Dominion came to me while I was walking through downtown LA. Across the street were two well dressed men having a heated argument. Nothing violent, but they were clearly angry with each other. They continued their argument as they walked through the front doors of a nearby office building, their arms and hands waving in angry gestures as they disappeared behind the glass. As I stood at an intersection waiting to cross the street, I kept glancing toward the upper floors of that office building half expecting to see them in one of the upper offices still shouting at one another. I remember thinking that it wouldn't surprise me if the two men came to blows and tackled each other through the window, so angry with each other that they'd still continue their fist fight as they plummeted down the side of the building.
Then the idea of two men fighting and falling, completely oblivious to their impending doom, got stuck in my head. It was then just a matter of finding a place to use it.
I've come to learn over the past few years what most writers probably already instinctively know; much of writing is about observation. Ideas usually don't come to us in a vacuum. However, writing can be a very solitary existence so it's very important to get out of the house, interact with people, see and experience new things. You have a much better chance of generating ideas when you aren't staring at the same four walls day after day.
This past week, I visited the Museum of Jurassic Technology. It is...interesting (and admittedly, a little horrifying). The first display I saw when I walked in was a stuffed fox head accompanied by a recording of its howl. In and of itself, this wasn't terribly creepy (your definition of creepy may vary). But underneath the howls, I heard another recording coming from the far side of the room. It was a woman's voice saying, over and over again...
"Little brownies, little brownies, your mistress is dead."
W. T. F.
I was unfamiliar with bee lore so I had never heard this before. And even now that I do know the origin of the saying, I still find it unsettling. Which makes it a perfect idea. It's a good bet that you'll be seeing some iteration of this in one of my future stories.
Usually, though, ideas don't come to me quite so dramatically. I also find that when I do think of an idea while I'm out and about, I often forget it by the time I get home. So I've started carrying a moleskine notebook with me everywhere I go. That might not work for everyone, but I highly recommend keeping some sort of writing device with you at all times: notebook, cellphone, blackberry, etc. Anything that you find interesting: a line of overheard conversation, a sketch of an eye-catching view, write it down. It's a good idea to build your own warehouse of wonderful things. You may not use everything you collect or use it in the way you had originally planned, but it's nice to have a resevoir of ideas at the ready when you need them.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Black List is Up
Hollywood's favorite unproduced screenplays of 2008 are listed, including, to my extreme delight --
... THE HOW-TO GUIDE FOR SAVING THE WORLD by BenDavid Grabinski
“A loser discovers a book on how to stop an alien invasion and is thrust into action to stop a real one.”
BenDavid is another up-from-the-fandom screenwriter who I originally met in the blogworld. He's from Iowa. Iowa.
Keep typing. Keep. Typing.
... THE HOW-TO GUIDE FOR SAVING THE WORLD by BenDavid Grabinski
“A loser discovers a book on how to stop an alien invasion and is thrust into action to stop a real one.”
BenDavid is another up-from-the-fandom screenwriter who I originally met in the blogworld. He's from Iowa. Iowa.
Keep typing. Keep. Typing.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Chelsea, Not Leno
A few bits of housekeeping:
-- Episodes of Leverage will stream on TNT eventually, and be available for download on both Amazon (which means Tivo purchasing!) and iTunes within days. I believe the premiere's already up on Amazon. No word on Hulu or XBox.
-- Michael Alan Nelson will be joining us as our third team blogger. He's been writing the excellent Fall of Cthulhu series for BOOM!. I'm genuinely a fan of Nelson's work, and the recent trades of his run are well worth picking up. (Love the size of the BOOM! trades, btw). His new book Hexed manages to somehow be Juno meets Hellblazer meets Epic Win. I figured a horror/indie writer is a nice way to round out the team.
--Leno to 10pm? There goes another 40 or so writing jobs. The economics make sense, but if NBC was going to focus so much on talk shows, then I personally would rather see Chelsea Handler take The Late Show than Jimmy Fallon. Break up the White Dude Chorus Line a little, fer chrissake. The Lovely Wife introduced me to Chelsea's show last year, and now I'm hooked. But we both agree -- cut the bangs, Chelsea.
-- Episodes of Leverage will stream on TNT eventually, and be available for download on both Amazon (which means Tivo purchasing!) and iTunes within days. I believe the premiere's already up on Amazon. No word on Hulu or XBox.
-- Michael Alan Nelson will be joining us as our third team blogger. He's been writing the excellent Fall of Cthulhu series for BOOM!. I'm genuinely a fan of Nelson's work, and the recent trades of his run are well worth picking up. (Love the size of the BOOM! trades, btw). His new book Hexed manages to somehow be Juno meets Hellblazer meets Epic Win. I figured a horror/indie writer is a nice way to round out the team.
--Leno to 10pm? There goes another 40 or so writing jobs. The economics make sense, but if NBC was going to focus so much on talk shows, then I personally would rather see Chelsea Handler take The Late Show than Jimmy Fallon. Break up the White Dude Chorus Line a little, fer chrissake. The Lovely Wife introduced me to Chelsea's show last year, and now I'm hooked. But we both agree -- cut the bangs, Chelsea.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Waid Wednesday #1: 101
Screenwriter walks into my office. Famous, one of the two or three whose name is as instantly recognizable to movie fans in Iowa as it is to us Left Coasters. And he’s immediately on my good side because the first words out of his mouth are not “so I have this pitch for a supernatural western,” but, rather, “I know how to write for film but I don’t know how to write for comics, and I presume there’s a difference.” You would be astounded at the number of professional writers who mooch off my expense account and don’t know even that much. Here’s what I told him:
The single most important difference between a screenplay and a comic book script is that a comic story is made up of frozen moments. Screen stills. Snapshots. While there is no “right” format for comics scripts (and we’ll get into the specifics of formatting later), they generally look something like this:
* * * * *
1 AQUAMAN: Can you HEAR me?
2 GL: My ring’s translating your UNDERWATER SPEECH, if that’s the question. Guess if you can LIVE underwater, you can TALK there...
3 GL: Lead the way. I’ll take point once we hit bottom. Then I’ll need you to--
PANEL TWO: AQUAMAN FROWNS AT GL.
4 AQUAMAN: Why are you always giving ORDERS?
5 GL: Because I’m the team LEADER.
PANEL THREE: AQUAMAN STARES AT GL BLANKLY. NO DIALOGUE.
PANEL FOUR: SAME EXACT, EXCEPT AQUAMAN EXPLODES WITH LAUGHTER, CLUTCHING HIS SIDES. GL’S COMPLETELY BAFFLED.
6 AQUAMAN/dwindles: AH ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
7 GL: What? What’s so FUNNY?
8 AQUAMAN: YOU’RE not the leader of the Justice League. FLASH is the LEADER!
9 GL: ...
10 GL: What?
PANEL FIVE: AQUAMAN SWIMS ON, BARELY VISIBLE IN THE MURK. GL FOLLOWS.
11 AQUAMAN: The REST of us talked about this WEEKS ago! It’s OBVIOUS to US!
12 GL: Then why...
13 AQUAMAN: Why does Flash let you boss us AROUND? We just figured he was letting you be YOU.
PANEL SIX: GL, WITH SOME CONCERN, NOTICES HIS BUBBLE CRACKING. WATER’S ALMOST PITCH BLACK BY NOW.
14 SFX: krkK-KK-K
15 AQUAMAN: Careful. We’re at the deepest spot on EARTH. Pressure’s UNCANNY. Pump up the WILL POWER...
16 AQUAMAN: ...“leader.”
17 AQUAMAN/small: Heh.
* * * * *
Frozen moments. No artist can illustrate, in one panel, “Tiffany gets up from her chair and answers the door” or “Vito sniffs the rose and puts it in his lapel,” or even “He blinks.” This isn’t a medium for fluid motion. You’re collaborating with an artist who can convey (generally speaking) one action per panel, no more. If you can’t imagine what a photograph of the moment would look like, neither can your artist envision it and force it out of his pencil. Frozen. Moments.
The second most important difference is that the comics page uses space the way film uses time. On your TV screen, the Battle of Trafalgar and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich are the same size--27” (or whatever) on the diagonal--and what indicates their relative significance to the story is how long the camera lingers on them. In comics, artists instead tend to indicate the importance of an image (a moment) by how large it is. An establishing shot of an alien-world landscape that’s supposed to be fascinating and breathtaking and jaw-dropping in its detail and splendor needs to be big, maybe a single image across facing pages. Conversely, unless that sandwich is the crowning punchline to some incredible dramatization of The History of Sandwiches, it probably doesn’t need to take up much room on the page. Even if it’s somehow, against all odds, a plot point (“PANEL TWO: IN A PANIC, THE MOBSTER STABS HIS HAND INTO THE BROWN PAPER BAG. PANEL THREE: CLOSE ON HIS HAND AS HE WITHDRAWS NOT A PISTOL BUT, RATHER, A PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH. PANEL FOUR: AN EXPRESSION OF HORROR DAWNS ON HIM AS HE REALIZES HE GRABBED HIS SON’S LUNCH INSTEAD OF HIS OWN CAMOUFLAGED GUN.”), really, how big does that one image need to be to hit the beat? Not very; certainly not compared to the following moment where the defenseless mobster, armed only with a 400-calorie lunch treat, is gunned down by the time-traveling team of John Wilkes Booth, Squeaky Fromme, and Robot Al Capone 3000. (That’s a full-page image.)
There are at least forty other things vying for “third most important difference,” and we’ll get to those soon, but those are the big two.
Next: 101-A
The single most important difference between a screenplay and a comic book script is that a comic story is made up of frozen moments. Screen stills. Snapshots. While there is no “right” format for comics scripts (and we’ll get into the specifics of formatting later), they generally look something like this:
* * * * *
PAGE THIRTEEN
PANEL ONE: GREEN LANTERN AND AQUAMAN DESCEND TO THE OCEAN DEPTHS. LANTERN’S IN A SMALL RING-GENERATED BUBBLE. AQUAMAN’S SWIMMING, BUBBLES SPILLING FROM HIS MOUTH WHEN HE SPEAKS. ARTIST NOTE: OVER THE COURSE OF THIS PAGE, THE WATER GETS MURKIER AND MURKIER.1 AQUAMAN: Can you HEAR me?
2 GL: My ring’s translating your UNDERWATER SPEECH, if that’s the question. Guess if you can LIVE underwater, you can TALK there...
3 GL: Lead the way. I’ll take point once we hit bottom. Then I’ll need you to--
PANEL TWO: AQUAMAN FROWNS AT GL.
4 AQUAMAN: Why are you always giving ORDERS?
5 GL: Because I’m the team LEADER.
PANEL THREE: AQUAMAN STARES AT GL BLANKLY. NO DIALOGUE.
PANEL FOUR: SAME EXACT, EXCEPT AQUAMAN EXPLODES WITH LAUGHTER, CLUTCHING HIS SIDES. GL’S COMPLETELY BAFFLED.
6 AQUAMAN/dwindles: AH ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
7 GL: What? What’s so FUNNY?
8 AQUAMAN: YOU’RE not the leader of the Justice League. FLASH is the LEADER!
9 GL: ...
10 GL: What?
PANEL FIVE: AQUAMAN SWIMS ON, BARELY VISIBLE IN THE MURK. GL FOLLOWS.
11 AQUAMAN: The REST of us talked about this WEEKS ago! It’s OBVIOUS to US!
12 GL: Then why...
13 AQUAMAN: Why does Flash let you boss us AROUND? We just figured he was letting you be YOU.
PANEL SIX: GL, WITH SOME CONCERN, NOTICES HIS BUBBLE CRACKING. WATER’S ALMOST PITCH BLACK BY NOW.
14 SFX: krkK-KK-K
15 AQUAMAN: Careful. We’re at the deepest spot on EARTH. Pressure’s UNCANNY. Pump up the WILL POWER...
16 AQUAMAN: ...“leader.”
17 AQUAMAN/small: Heh.
* * * * *
Frozen moments. No artist can illustrate, in one panel, “Tiffany gets up from her chair and answers the door” or “Vito sniffs the rose and puts it in his lapel,” or even “He blinks.” This isn’t a medium for fluid motion. You’re collaborating with an artist who can convey (generally speaking) one action per panel, no more. If you can’t imagine what a photograph of the moment would look like, neither can your artist envision it and force it out of his pencil. Frozen. Moments.
The second most important difference is that the comics page uses space the way film uses time. On your TV screen, the Battle of Trafalgar and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich are the same size--27” (or whatever) on the diagonal--and what indicates their relative significance to the story is how long the camera lingers on them. In comics, artists instead tend to indicate the importance of an image (a moment) by how large it is. An establishing shot of an alien-world landscape that’s supposed to be fascinating and breathtaking and jaw-dropping in its detail and splendor needs to be big, maybe a single image across facing pages. Conversely, unless that sandwich is the crowning punchline to some incredible dramatization of The History of Sandwiches, it probably doesn’t need to take up much room on the page. Even if it’s somehow, against all odds, a plot point (“PANEL TWO: IN A PANIC, THE MOBSTER STABS HIS HAND INTO THE BROWN PAPER BAG. PANEL THREE: CLOSE ON HIS HAND AS HE WITHDRAWS NOT A PISTOL BUT, RATHER, A PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH. PANEL FOUR: AN EXPRESSION OF HORROR DAWNS ON HIM AS HE REALIZES HE GRABBED HIS SON’S LUNCH INSTEAD OF HIS OWN CAMOUFLAGED GUN.”), really, how big does that one image need to be to hit the beat? Not very; certainly not compared to the following moment where the defenseless mobster, armed only with a 400-calorie lunch treat, is gunned down by the time-traveling team of John Wilkes Booth, Squeaky Fromme, and Robot Al Capone 3000. (That’s a full-page image.)
There are at least forty other things vying for “third most important difference,” and we’ll get to those soon, but those are the big two.
Next: 101-A
Enter The Chimp
Welcome to Trainee Day here at Kung Fu Monkey. Your host, John Rogers, has been kind enough to let me take his monkey out for a spin and get a feel for blogging on a regular basis each Wednesday.
I’m Mark Waid, author of the graphic novels KINGDOM COME, SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT, EMPIRE, JLA: TOWER OF BABEL, and somewhere just short of nine hundred comics stories over the past twenty years. For the past eighteen months, I’ve also been serving as Editor In Chief at BOOM! Studios, an up-and-coming comic-and-graphic-novel publishing company (www.boom-studios.com) that you may have heard of every time John brags about his resumé. And in between, I’ve been at various times a publisher, a line editor, a colorist, a letterer, a designer, a liaison with toy companies and outside media, a proofreader, an artist...I’ve been involved in every phase of comics production short of being the guy who staples the things together. That, I’m saving for my old age. Right now, while I’m still young enough to type, John’s been kind enough to lend me his forum on a regular basis so I can talk craft (and history) (and process) about comics and pass along what I’ve learned about How It’s Done. John swears there’s a demand for this. John also liked Down With Love, so we will see.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing with you excerpts from the various university lectures and how-to’s that I’ve formulated during what I bemusedly refer to as “my career,” as well as throwing out some points for fierce debate (as if the internet consisted of anything else). I’ll also be happy to answer questions as time and space allow. Remember, though, I’m new at this form of communication, so be gentle with m--
Ow.
Goddamn it, somebody already threw something.
And John refuses to let me put up the chicken wire.
Next: 101.
I’m Mark Waid, author of the graphic novels KINGDOM COME, SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT, EMPIRE, JLA: TOWER OF BABEL, and somewhere just short of nine hundred comics stories over the past twenty years. For the past eighteen months, I’ve also been serving as Editor In Chief at BOOM! Studios, an up-and-coming comic-and-graphic-novel publishing company (www.boom-studios.com) that you may have heard of every time John brags about his resumé. And in between, I’ve been at various times a publisher, a line editor, a colorist, a letterer, a designer, a liaison with toy companies and outside media, a proofreader, an artist...I’ve been involved in every phase of comics production short of being the guy who staples the things together. That, I’m saving for my old age. Right now, while I’m still young enough to type, John’s been kind enough to lend me his forum on a regular basis so I can talk craft (and history) (and process) about comics and pass along what I’ve learned about How It’s Done. John swears there’s a demand for this. John also liked Down With Love, so we will see.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing with you excerpts from the various university lectures and how-to’s that I’ve formulated during what I bemusedly refer to as “my career,” as well as throwing out some points for fierce debate (as if the internet consisted of anything else). I’ll also be happy to answer questions as time and space allow. Remember, though, I’m new at this form of communication, so be gentle with m--
Ow.
Goddamn it, somebody already threw something.
And John refuses to let me put up the chicken wire.
Next: 101.
A Senate seat is " a fucking valuable thing."
From the Blagojevich indictment (h/t Gawker). After you watch tonight's ep of Leverage ... you will marvel in our psychic powers. As our story editor Albert Kim just e-mailed me: "The cartoonishly corrupt governor of Illinois might as well be writing dialogue for us."
Which does hammer home something -- every crime we have a bad guy commit is based on a real, suited bad guy. It's not like we're out manufacturing wrong-doing, or even the excesses of these antagonists. We're just covering aspects of crime and corruption previously left unplumbed, as most crime shows on TV are busy with serial killers and rapists.
Of course they do so because that is a successful formula -- and their success can be explained by Harlan Ellison and Joseph Campbell. Which is the subject for another post.
LEVERAGE: The Homecoming Job - 12/9 - 10pm
Yes, it wasn't a bad Monday, particularly the 18-49 numbers. Although now, of course, you have to wait for the live +3 numbers, which don't come in for a week. All our metrics now are ... tricksy. It's worth noting that when I started in this industry, pre-ad-supported cable, anything under a 15-share was instant death.
Anyway, tonight's the regular time-slot, so if you dug the premiere watch us new at 10pm tonight. It was intended as a "soft relaunch" to establish the regular location of the show -- Los Angeles -- the crew's cover story/offices, etc. Tonight also has a spiffy Apollo-Robbins choreographed three-person pickpocket done all in one continuous shot.
Alert viewers will be able to trace most of the writing inspirations from current news events. All the veterans in the hospital scene are actual vets, btw, including our guest star Jake McLaughlin, who was stop-lossed for his fourth year in Iraq. Jake's a ridiculously good actor with a great, quiet presence, and I look forward to being able to brag I hired him early in what will be a very fine career.
Most fun during the shoot? Robert Pine plays one of our villains. That meant CHiPs stories. Wild, wild CHiPS stories. Peyote and a naked Erik Estrada wrestling a bear ...
I'm talking to TNT later about maybe releasing scripts, for the Spec Monkeys and educational purposes. Also, Downey and I shot some two-minute "From the Writer's Room" bumps that ought to be up soon. We're not as interesting as the actors, but we ... squint more. No, seriously, I can't imagine why you'd watch them, but apparently people do.
P.S.: There's also an online game, with a $100,000 grand prize. That money was supposed to pay for my swank office, so I'd like to see one of my readers win it to at least partially justify why I ate lunch in my car for four months. Go get 'em.
Anyway, tonight's the regular time-slot, so if you dug the premiere watch us new at 10pm tonight. It was intended as a "soft relaunch" to establish the regular location of the show -- Los Angeles -- the crew's cover story/offices, etc. Tonight also has a spiffy Apollo-Robbins choreographed three-person pickpocket done all in one continuous shot.
Alert viewers will be able to trace most of the writing inspirations from current news events. All the veterans in the hospital scene are actual vets, btw, including our guest star Jake McLaughlin, who was stop-lossed for his fourth year in Iraq. Jake's a ridiculously good actor with a great, quiet presence, and I look forward to being able to brag I hired him early in what will be a very fine career.
Most fun during the shoot? Robert Pine plays one of our villains. That meant CHiPs stories. Wild, wild CHiPS stories. Peyote and a naked Erik Estrada wrestling a bear ...
I'm talking to TNT later about maybe releasing scripts, for the Spec Monkeys and educational purposes. Also, Downey and I shot some two-minute "From the Writer's Room" bumps that ought to be up soon. We're not as interesting as the actors, but we ... squint more. No, seriously, I can't imagine why you'd watch them, but apparently people do.
P.S.: There's also an online game, with a $100,000 grand prize. That money was supposed to pay for my swank office, so I'd like to see one of my readers win it to at least partially justify why I ate lunch in my car for four months. Go get 'em.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Waid Wednesdays - Multiple Monkeys
Long story short, after watching a friend of mine school yet another newbie comic writer, I got on him about the whole new media thing. Basically: "You are rather good at this, and express your ideas clearly. You should broaden your audience. By which I mean start posting on my site so I can keep my site traffic up while I'm off running TV shows."
Foolishly, he has agreed.
In the next couple weeks, Kung Fu Monkey adds another voice to the site. And seeing how you've put up with my half-assed theorizing, this is a treat. A guy with twenty years of experience in literally every job in comics, a great storyteller in any medium, and a rocking singing voice -- Mark Waid will be posting here as the whim suits him.
This is frankly just cool. First post should be up soon.
Foolishly, he has agreed.
In the next couple weeks, Kung Fu Monkey adds another voice to the site. And seeing how you've put up with my half-assed theorizing, this is a treat. A guy with twenty years of experience in literally every job in comics, a great storyteller in any medium, and a rocking singing voice -- Mark Waid will be posting here as the whim suits him.
This is frankly just cool. First post should be up soon.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
For the Workflow Geeks ...
An article on how we shot Leverage on the Apple Homepage.
Yes, we made 13 prime time episodes of television with stuff you can buy at your local Apple store. Well, not the 34Tb server. And, of course, the Reds. Odds are, however, you will not be shooting 3 cameras for 14 hours a day.
I will say, however, that lacking the Reds you could do a hell of a lot worse than the Sony XDCAM EX1. There are a quite a few shots in the series shot on this camera, and odds are you'll never notice the difference. They're harder to get now that the EX3 is out (it takes digi-primes) but they're gems.
Yes, we made 13 prime time episodes of television with stuff you can buy at your local Apple store. Well, not the 34Tb server. And, of course, the Reds. Odds are, however, you will not be shooting 3 cameras for 14 hours a day.
I will say, however, that lacking the Reds you could do a hell of a lot worse than the Sony XDCAM EX1. There are a quite a few shots in the series shot on this camera, and odds are you'll never notice the difference. They're harder to get now that the EX3 is out (it takes digi-primes) but they're gems.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Manual of the Planes
Apparently Amazon orders are shipping. In my ceaseless quest to become Jack of All Trades, Master of None, I wrote the Feywild chapter for this game supplement. Interesting exercise -- basically creating factions, characters, and locations which may interact in some way in a narrative, but in no predictable pattern. A novel without a protagonist, basically.
Anyway, the WOTC folks seemed happy with my work. If you're of the d20 brethren, the link is below. Oh, and Andy Collins gave me a genial chewing out, so I'll leave the link over in the sidebar for a bit.
Anyway, the WOTC folks seemed happy with my work. If you're of the d20 brethren, the link is below. Oh, and Andy Collins gave me a genial chewing out, so I'll leave the link over in the sidebar for a bit.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
If I May Agree With Rick Mercer ...
... fuck the Governor-General on general principle, and double-fuck the current one.
Thank God an unelected figurehead appointed by another unelected figurehead from a whole other country managed shut down the entire government of a sovereign nation before things spiralled out of hand and erupted in a mess of, of ... violent parliamentary motions. Why, there could have been shouting.
[Canadian hat] Why we don't reclaim that land, raze the building and build a public park, I have not a goddam clue.[/canadian hat]
On the other hand, I have to sincerely admit -- way to work the refs, Harper. I never liked it when people called him Bush Lite. He was and has always been way, way smarter than President Bush.
Thank God an unelected figurehead appointed by another unelected figurehead from a whole other country managed shut down the entire government of a sovereign nation before things spiralled out of hand and erupted in a mess of, of ... violent parliamentary motions. Why, there could have been shouting.
[Canadian hat] Why we don't reclaim that land, raze the building and build a public park, I have not a goddam clue.[/canadian hat]
On the other hand, I have to sincerely admit -- way to work the refs, Harper. I never liked it when people called him Bush Lite. He was and has always been way, way smarter than President Bush.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
PRIMER timeline
For those who are just now discovering Primer on Netflix -- a timeline. Which is not very helpful at all, actually, but fun to try to figure out.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Hiatus Movie Recommendations
Slumdog Millionaire: I don't care how long the drive is. Go. And particularly for screenwriters -- this thing is a swiss watch. Regardless of how you may wind up feeling about the film as a whole (I loved it), there is not a single moment in the story where you don't desperately want to know, have to know, what is going to happen in the next ten seconds. "Open with a mystery", indeed.
Netflix on 360 recommendation-- Planet B-Boy. International break-dancing and father issues.
Yes, the streaming Netflix is my new obsession. Their available films are a weird mix to say the least, but all is forgiven when you discover that they have every season of The Rockford Files available for streaming.
I can watch any episode of Rockford. At any time. Sweet Jesus.
In the Comments -- your most recent best rental/indie viewing pleasure.
Now where the hell's Riptide?
Netflix on 360 recommendation-- Planet B-Boy. International break-dancing and father issues.
Yes, the streaming Netflix is my new obsession. Their available films are a weird mix to say the least, but all is forgiven when you discover that they have every season of The Rockford Files available for streaming.
I can watch any episode of Rockford. At any time. Sweet Jesus.
In the Comments -- your most recent best rental/indie viewing pleasure.
Now where the hell's Riptide?
Monday, December 1, 2008
There Will Be Leverage
Oh, it will be positively tiresome.
The LA Times Hollywood Backlot photo shoot is up. Chris Kane and Mark Sheppard fans in particular will be delighted. The shoot is from the season finale two-parter, "The First David Job" and "The Second David Job".
The Entertainment Weekly review is up, and although I appreciate the B+ grade, anyone who can watch Gina, Beth, Kane and Aldis and not chuckle (the Klingon bit, Ken, the Klingon bit!) has a little dark spot in his soul.
The LA Times Hollywood Backlot photo shoot is up. Chris Kane and Mark Sheppard fans in particular will be delighted. The shoot is from the season finale two-parter, "The First David Job" and "The Second David Job".
The Entertainment Weekly review is up, and although I appreciate the B+ grade, anyone who can watch Gina, Beth, Kane and Aldis and not chuckle (the Klingon bit, Ken, the Klingon bit!) has a little dark spot in his soul.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
LEVERAGE promos up
The character stuff has been up for a while, but now some behind the scenes stuff is up. The two that are, well, the geekiest --
and
Apollo's new website is a bit spare still (it doesn't mention his recent work in the cognitive science of magic), but his site for his old show is up, including his very cool reading list.
and
Apollo's new website is a bit spare still (it doesn't mention his recent work in the cognitive science of magic), but his site for his old show is up, including his very cool reading list.
(Yes, I know they choke in Firefox, particularly on Mac. Explorer or Safari will stream them just fine. Considering how extensive the TNT promo has been, it would be petty of me to keep harping on my streaming video obsession. )
Friday, November 28, 2008
Streaming Mac to 360: Rivet
I've written before that consoles are the stealth players in the coming media landscape. For the vast majority of Americans, the console is a box attached to your TV, and the computer is a box in the room over there. This has been particularly vexing of late because the house I've moved into in LA is way, way waaaay smaller (and therefore only twice as expensive) than the house I was living in in Ottawa. Among other things, I want to rip my DVD's and leave the physical artifacts in my storage unit. This is not to mention the addiction I've developed consuming TV online (I LIKE three ad-breaks a show).
I've been using PlayOn to stream Hulu and Netflix from my BootCamped iMac to my XBox 360 -- you still need bloody Windows XP for that functionality. However, the new update in the 360 allows direct streaming from Netflix. It's dead simple to set up. As in, "watching my streaming queue movies within four minutes and fifteen seconds" easy. There's a limited amount of TV on Netflix right now, but when/if people smarten up -- or Microsoft cuts a deal with Hulu -- then the "broadcast" landscape is only going to get more chaotic.
Considering the licensing and royalty issues involved, that problem isn't going to get solved soon. However, I'm constantly buffaloed when I talk to fellow Hollywood types about "when the techology arrives". The tech is here. The only thing stopping the consoles from ruling the entertainment landscape is, as far as I can tell, a general unwillingness to get involved in an industry far less profitable, with far more headaches, than their own.
The tone of voice when I talk about these things tend to be a disdainful "Well, sure but how are we supposed to monetize this?" Right question, wrong tone. We. Don't. Have. A. Choice.
All this to say, streaming digital entertainment from your Windows computer to an XBox was always pretty simple but if you had a Mac you had to deal with Connect360. It's a fine program, but the menu system is a bit primitive, and I personally ran into some connectivity issues. So I'd like to recommend Rivet. It installs in a flash, it's about $20, and it works off the internal file structure of your Mac -- so however you arrange your media on your Mac, that's what shows up on the XBox. Managed to set it up within a few minutes, possibly even easier than the Netflix setup. Was watching my ripped Inspector Lynley mystery in no time.
In the Comments, your latest tech hacks.
I've been using PlayOn to stream Hulu and Netflix from my BootCamped iMac to my XBox 360 -- you still need bloody Windows XP for that functionality. However, the new update in the 360 allows direct streaming from Netflix. It's dead simple to set up. As in, "watching my streaming queue movies within four minutes and fifteen seconds" easy. There's a limited amount of TV on Netflix right now, but when/if people smarten up -- or Microsoft cuts a deal with Hulu -- then the "broadcast" landscape is only going to get more chaotic.
Considering the licensing and royalty issues involved, that problem isn't going to get solved soon. However, I'm constantly buffaloed when I talk to fellow Hollywood types about "when the techology arrives". The tech is here. The only thing stopping the consoles from ruling the entertainment landscape is, as far as I can tell, a general unwillingness to get involved in an industry far less profitable, with far more headaches, than their own.
The tone of voice when I talk about these things tend to be a disdainful "Well, sure but how are we supposed to monetize this?" Right question, wrong tone. We. Don't. Have. A. Choice.
All this to say, streaming digital entertainment from your Windows computer to an XBox was always pretty simple but if you had a Mac you had to deal with Connect360. It's a fine program, but the menu system is a bit primitive, and I personally ran into some connectivity issues. So I'd like to recommend Rivet. It installs in a flash, it's about $20, and it works off the internal file structure of your Mac -- so however you arrange your media on your Mac, that's what shows up on the XBox. Managed to set it up within a few minutes, possibly even easier than the Netflix setup. Was watching my ripped Inspector Lynley mystery in no time.
In the Comments, your latest tech hacks.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Somali Piracy for Newbies
(h/t Matt Yglesias)
The Somali pirates were the centerpiece of my Pirate Tale for Boom! a couple years back. Studying the fringes of functioning society now, for writing ideas ... well, you know how Gibson said "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed"? That's usually taken as a bromide about Good Shiny Tech. The Somali Pirates are part of the future, too, and it's worth considering how, if and when they might be coming to a neighborhood near you.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Tauren Shammy lfg White House Run
Thanks to spiffy new BoingBoing game blog Offworld, I now know that --
The Xbox generation is coming faster than you think.
Fun Fact: At one point in this season of Leverage, you will hear "For the Horde". Un-ironically.
You know, the expansion's out just as I hit hiatus. I guess loading it up again, just trying out the new build wouldn't hurt ...
Obama's just-appointed FCC transition team co-chair Kevin Werbach has been recognized as verifiable "virtual worlds nut" and World of Warcraft Level 70 Tauren Shaman Supernovan Jenkins ...... and as right thinking players, he is for the Horde.
The Xbox generation is coming faster than you think.
Fun Fact: At one point in this season of Leverage, you will hear "For the Horde". Un-ironically.
You know, the expansion's out just as I hit hiatus. I guess loading it up again, just trying out the new build wouldn't hurt ...
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
DNA as fiber optics
Courtesy of Warren Ellis, we are shown once again that reality is not only cooler than you imagine, it's cooler than you can ... etc. etc.:
Thanks to a new technique, DNA strands can be easily converted into tiny fibre optic cables that guide light along their length. Optical fibres made this way could be important in optical computers, which use light rather than electricity to perform calculations, or in artificial photosynthesis systems that may replace today's solar panels.In the comments -- your favorite recent weird science story.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Survivor Corps
Occasionally new, worthwhile charities cross my email account. Survivor Corps is dedicated to creating locally-based community support for returning veterans who are dealing with emotional issues after the end of their deployment. Physical injuries are one thing, but it's crucial that we help men and women who have seen and experienced the unimaginable re-integrate successfully back into their post-deployment lives.
There's a tragic culture of shame around suicide and depression in this country, making it very hard for people to reach out for help without feeling as if they've failed in some way. The idea that veterans will be dealing primarily with other veterans with shared experiences is a great way of mitigating that vulnerability.
Not everyone needs this help, of course, but those who do need it desperately. I know that times are tough, but if you can, please swing by and toss the price of a large pizza in the pot for them. Thanks.
There's a tragic culture of shame around suicide and depression in this country, making it very hard for people to reach out for help without feeling as if they've failed in some way. The idea that veterans will be dealing primarily with other veterans with shared experiences is a great way of mitigating that vulnerability.
Not everyone needs this help, of course, but those who do need it desperately. I know that times are tough, but if you can, please swing by and toss the price of a large pizza in the pot for them. Thanks.
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